by Parnell Hall
“Couldn’t it have been broken after the letters were typed?” Steve asked.
“No. That’s just one instance. There are others. Of course, I’m just giving you an off-the-cuff answer. If you want a careful analysis it will take some time. But believe me, it’s conclusive.”
Steve nodded grimly. “Thanks.”
“You want a complete analysis?”
Steve shook his head. “What do I owe you?”
“If that’s all you want, fifty bucks.”
Steve nodded.
“How you gonna pay?”
“In cash.”
“Fine. What name you want on the receipt?”
“No receipt.”
Steve walked out of the office building into the din of Broadway. A crew with a jackhammer was tearing up the sidewalk. Steve detoured around them, stood on the corner, and looked around.
Damn. Was it the jackhammer that was giving him the headache?
Or the letters?
Steve took the letters and the note out of his jacket pocket. Well, at least this time he was prepared for it. He took a stamped, self-addressed envelope out of his other pocket. White, business size. No perfume this time. Steve put the letters and the note in the envelope, sealed it, and dropped it in the mailbox on the corner.
Steve sighed and rubbed his head.
What a fucking mess. Bradshaw hadn’t sent the letters. Bradshaw wasn’t his client. Somewhere out there was a person with a half a dollar bill. A person who held Steve’s fate in his hands. A person who could walk up to him at any minute and suddenly turn his world upside down.
Steve shook his head angrily. Damn it. Snap out of it. Think.
Steve realized he hadn’t been thinking clearly at all so far. He’d been too caught up in the events, events so bizarre and outlandish they seemed straight out of one of Tracy Garvin’s detective thrillers. That was the problem. The whole thing just didn’t seem real. I mean, come on. Anonymous letters, ten thousand dollar cash retainers, and mystery clients, for Christ’s sake. It just couldn’t be.
But it was. That was the thing Steve had to concentrate on. It could happen and it had happened. Someone had sent him ten thousand bucks in the mail.
And there had to be a reason why.
22
“Sheila Benton.”
Mark Taylor leaned back in his desk chair, cocked his head at Steve Winslow, and said, “What about her? I thought she was in Europe.”
“She is.”
“So?”
Steve shifted position in Taylor’s overstuffed clients’ chair. He rubbed his head. “I want you to dig into her background.”
Taylor stared at him. “What?”
“That’s right.”
“You want me to investigate a client in a case that’s been closed for months?”
“I don’t want you to investigate the case. Just her.”
“Why?”
Steve took a breath. “Let’s look at this case objectively, Mark.”
“O.K.”
“To begin with, someone sent me those letters.”
Mark Taylor laughed nervously. “What letters, Steve? I don’t know about any letters, remember?”
“Right, right,” Steve said impatiently. “You don’t know about any letters. It’s just you and me talking here, Mark. But if it makes you nervous, we’ll have a hypothetical conversation. Suppose someone sent me some letters.”
Taylor groaned. “Oh Jesus, cut the comedy.”
Steve shrugged. “You’re hard to please. All right. Either way you want it, start with the letters. Someone sent them to me. And the question is why?”
“And the answer is I don’t know. And I bet you don’t know either.”
“Right. I don’t know who and I don’t know why. But I do know one thing. They were sent to me.”
Taylor frowned. “What do you mean?”
“That’s the key to this whole thing. I don’t know who this person was. And I don’t know what sort of trouble they were in that made them feel they needed an attorney. But I do know that when they did decide they needed an attorney, they thought of me. And that’s mighty interesting.”
“Why?”
“Figure it out. I’ve only been an attorney for one year. I’ve had one case and one client. Sheila Benton. And after the showing I made in court on that case, there was no reason for anyone to assume I was any good.
“And then someone sends me a retainer. Why me? How would they hear of me? How would they know?”
Taylor frowned. “I see.”
“Right,” Steve said. “It’s not as if I were William Kunstler or something. Nobody knows me. The only person in the world who would have any reason to think I’m a good attorney would be Sheila Benton. She’s the only person I could think of who could possibly recommend me to someone who was in a jam.”
“That makes sense,” Taylor said. “So why don’t you ask her?”
“Because I don’t know where she is. She’s in Europe, that’s all I know. Her itinerary was deliberately vague. She wanted to travel, forget, and not be reached for anything. I have complete power of attorney to handle her affairs. She trusts me completely. With everything. Except knowing where she is.”
“I see.”
“So start digging around. See if there’s anyone connected with this case that you can link with Sheila Benton.”
“Right.”
“Start with Marilyn Harding’s circle of acquaintances.”
Taylor grimaced. “I knew you were going to say that.”
“Well,” Steve said, “they both come from money. It’s a logical assumption.”
“That’s just it,” Taylor said. “Steve, I’m your friend, and I want to help you. And I need the work. I’m not in business for my health. But, Jesus.”
“What?”
“Well, if I go sticking my nose around Marilyn Harding’s business, the cops are going to get onto it. They’re not going to be pleased.”
“You’re a private investigator. You have every right to investigate, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So I’m hiring you to investigate. If the cops give you a hard time, you refer them back to me.”
“I know. It’s just the whole letter business. I don’t want to be interrogated again.”
“You and me both,” Steve said.
Steve walked back to his office. Tracy Garvin was at the desk. She looked at him when he came in the door. He couldn’t make out her mood behind those large-rimmed glasses. The girl, Steve realized, was something of an enigma. How could one girl be so old in so many ways, and so immature in others, so smart in so many ways, and so slow in others. Just what was her story anyway?
For the moment, Steve realized, he didn’t care. He had too much on his mind to deal with her. He gave her a noncommittal nod and plodded into his inner office.
He sat at his desk to think things over. Though, he realized, there was nothing much to think about. Just let Mark come up with something. Anything. Something that got him off the hook. A lead. A human being he could go to and say, “Damn it, you’re my client, now what the hell is going on?”
And even if they wouldn’t tell him, it wouldn’t matter. Because just knowing who the client was would be enough. Because, Steve realized, it didn’t really matter who the client was. All that mattered was that it wasn’t Marilyn Harding.
It was three hours later when the phone rang.
“Got it, Steve.”
“Yeah, Mark.”
“It wasn’t hard, really, once you told me what you were looking for. I got men out digging around and-”
“Mark. Please. I don’t need a rundown. Who’s the client?”
“Whoa. I’m not making any deductions. That’s your department. All you said was find someone with a connection with Sheila Benton. So that’s what I did.”
“Yes? And?”
“And it’s a definite. Hell, they went to school together, for Christ’s sake.”
“Yes, d
amn it. But who?”
“Oh. Sorry,” Mark said. “I thought you knew. It’s Marilyn Harding, of course.”
23
Judy Meyers watched the waiter depart with their orders, grimaced, and said, “I’m going to have to diet for two weeks to make up for this.”
“Then why did you order so much?” Steve said.
Judy smiled. “Are you kidding? Because you’re paying for it. I don’t get breaks like this that often.”
“You gettin’ any work?”
Judy shrugged. “A few auditions. I’m making the rounds.”
“Any callbacks?”
“Nothing to speak of. Things are slow. Look. Enough chitchat. This is a payback dinner, and, for your information, the payback’s gonna take more than food.”
Steve raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“You have a dirty mind,” Judy told him. “I mean the piece of paper. I’ve never been mixed up in a mystery before. So let’s have it.”
“Oh,” Steve said.
Judy stared at him. “You are going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Look,” Steve said. “I told you. I’m in trouble. Big trouble. I could be charged with something. If I am, anything I tell you could be construed as an admission of guilt. You could be forced to testify. I could-”
“Oh, bullshit,” Judy said. “I got that paper for you. If there’s anything illegal about it that makes me an accessory. If you think you can make me an accessory to a crime without letting me know what’s going on, that makes you a candidate for the Asshole of the Month award.”
“You got the paper without knowing what it’s all about. At worst, you’re an unwitting accomplice. The more you know, the more trouble you’re in.”
“Spoken like a lawyer. Hey, Steve, look, it’s me. It’s Judy sitting here. If you want to get all cutesy-poo legal on me, well, fine, tell me a hypothetical story of what might have happened. Then we’ll all be protected because we were just saying ‘what if.’ But let me tell you, if you don’t start talking, you are going to wind up with your salad in your lap.”
He told her the whole thing. More than he’d told Mark Taylor or Tracy Garvin. He told it from the beginning, from getting the letters, to finding Bradshaw’s body and tossing the note out the window, to everything that had happened since.
“So,” Judy said. “How true to form. The white knight on the charger. You raced down to the police station and rescued your secretary from the clutches of the law. No wonder the poor girl’s so starry eyed.”
“Come on,” Steve said irritably.
“Well, what girl could resist such a courtship?”
“She happens to have given two weeks’ notice.”
“Oh? Was that before or after the daring rescue?”
The food had long since arrived and was sitting untouched in front of them. Steve picked up a knife and fork and cut into his steak. After a moment or two, Judy followed suit.
They ate in silence.
“So,” Judy said. “What do you do now?”
Steve shook his head. “That’s the problem. There’s nothing I can do.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not her lawyer. Fitzpatrick is. The grand jury’s indicted her for murder. He’s got her out on bail. Dirkson’s pushing for a speedy court date, and Fitzpatrick is stalling like crazy. It’s the same old shit. Business as usual. But it’s not my business.”
“If she’s out on bail, why can’t you talk to her?”
“You don’t understand. I’m not her lawyer. But everyone from Dirkson to Fitzpatrick thinks I am, or at least used to be. And if Dirkson can prove it, he’s going to have me disbarred. The minute I go sniffing around her Dirkson’s gonna go bananas.”
“Fuck him.”
Steve stared at her. “What?”
“Fuck him. Let him go bananas.”
Steve sighed. “Judy, I’m afraid your usual incisive wit is somewhat lost on me. What the hell are you saying?”
Judy took a sip of her drink. “This thing has really got you tied up in knots, hasn’t it?”
Steve shook his head. “Yeah.”
“Talk to me.”
“What?”
“Tell me about it.”
“I told you about it.”
“No, not the damn case. I know all about the damn case. Tell me about you. Your first trial was over. Sheila Benton got acquitted.”
“The charges were dismissed.”
“Whatever.”
Steve shook his head. “No. Big difference. If she’d been acquitted in court, I’d have got credit for it. I’d have had a law practice.”
“Exactly. But she didn’t, and the cops grabbed all the credit, and then what?”
“And then nothing. I didn’t have a law practice. But I still had Sheila Benton for a client. And she came into a lot of money. Not just her own trust fund, she inherited from her uncle too. And that was a straight inheritance, not bound up in trust. She’s worth millions.”
Steve shrugged. “And she put me in charge of it. Complete power of attorney. At a substantial annual retainer. I rented an office, set up a practice, began to handle her affairs. Not very taxing work. But after years of driving a cab, not bad.
“But it got boring. Sheila went off to Europe. What little work there was dried up. The job trickled down to about one letter or phone call per day. I hired a secretary to handle that. I stopped coming by the office. I figured I deserved the leisure time. Maybe I’d learn to play golf.”
Steve rubbed his head. “What I really wanted, of course, was another case. Something I could sink my teeth into. Hell, just something to do. But I wasn’t going to get it because nobody knew about me, and those that did, from my first case, had to figure I was some sort of incredible asshole.
“And then, out of the blue, I get it. But it’s not a case. It’s some outrageous, improbable, storybook fantasy that makes no sense whatsoever. I have no idea what’s going on, and my only immediate prospect is being disbarred.”
“Which is great,” Judy said.
Steve stared at her. “Huh?”
“Hey, it’s just what the doctor ordered. Here you are, the embattled hero, fighting insurmountable odds. It’s a thoroughly glamorous position to be in.”
“Judy, this is not a play.”
“No, but it’s theatrical, and that’s where you shine. So stop crabbing, fuck Dirkson, and start fighting.”
“For whom?” Steve cried in exasperation. “That’s the whole fucking problem. Give me someone to fight for, and I’ll fight for ’em. Then I can be aggressive. Do things. Right now, I’m on the defensive all the time.”
“Oh, is that all?” Judy said. “No client, huh?” She reached under the table and fumbled in her purse.
“What are you doing?” Steve said.
“Just a minute,” Judy said. “Ah. Here we are.” Judy’s hand came up from under the table holding the torn half of a dollar bill. “There you are. I’m the client. Start fighting.”
Steve gawked at her. “What the hell!”
Judy shrugged and shook her head. “Can’t take a joke, can you?” Her other hand came up from under the table holding the other half of the dollar bill she had just torn. “Steve, the point is, it doesn’t matter who the client is. Fuck Dirkson. Get out there and kick some ass.” Judy smiled, cocked her head at him, and held up the two halves of the dollar bill. “Got any scotch tape?”
24
Steve Winslow scrunched down in the front seat of the rental car as Marilyn Harding’s Mercedes pulled out of the front gate of her mansion in Glen Cove. He gave her a couple hundred yards and pulled out after her.
If Marilyn had any idea she was being tailed, she didn’t show it. She drove straight to the Long Island Expressway, and headed for New York City.
He almost lost her at the Queens Midtown Tunnel. He didn’t want to be right behind her in line, so he picked another toll-booth. And, just as it was every time he picked a line in the supermarket, his line w
as slow. The guy in front of him didn’t have his money ready. When he got it out, it was apparently a twenty, because the tollbooth clerk looked at it for some time before slowly counting out the change, just as Marilyn Harding’s Mercedes disappeared into the tunnel. Then the guy wanted a receipt.
Steve took a breath, restrained himself from hitting the horn. If he’d done that, the guy probably would have turned around and given him the finger, wasting more time. Instead, he pulled away slowly.
Steve gunned the motor, lurched into the tollbooth, slapped his two dollars into the toll taker’s hand, gunned the motor again, and zoomed off. In the tunnel he weaved in and out, ignoring the double yellow line and the “KEEP IN ONE LANE” sign. He caught the Mercedes just as it emerged from the tunnel into Manhattan.
Marilyn Harding went down Second Avenue, across 34th Street, and pulled into a garage. Steve didn’t want to go into the same garage, but there were no others around. He pulled over to the curb and waited. About five minutes later Marilyn emerged, tucking her keys and her claim ticket into her purse. Steve hopped out of his car and tagged along behind.
She walked down the street and went into Macy’s. Steve groaned. After hours of sitting in the car, he wasn’t up to hours of shopping. And Macy’s wasn’t really a good place to approach her.
On the other hand, Steve realized, there was no good place to approach her. Well, what the hell. He had to take a shot.
Marilyn hopped on the escalator. Steve hopped on behind. As soon as she lights, he told himself.
She lit in lingerie. Just his luck. As if he didn’t have enough problems, the saleslady would think he was a masher. Well, the hell with it.
Steve walked up behind her. “Miss Harding?”
Marilyn wheeled around. She was holding a lacy bra. From the expression on her face, one would have thought she’d been caught shoplifting it. Then she recognized him.
“You!”
“Yes. Steve Winslow, in case you’ve forgotten. I thought it was time we finished our talk.”
Marilyn’s eyes flashed. “Oh, is that so. I’ve been indicted for murder. I have a lawyer, and he doesn’t happen to be you.”
“I sure wish you could convince some other people of that.”